Special Guest Charlie Lawson: Networking for Your Personal Brand: How to Build Genuine Relationships Online and IRL

0:00Welcome to Brand You, the ultimate personal branding podcast.

0:03Charlie Lawson:I'm Kaz Grant. And I'm Toby Lee. Together, we're here to help demystify personal branding and to make it accessible and effective for everyone. Follow along as we guide you through creating your own personal branding journeys. So let's get started. Let's brand you.

0:25Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Brand New Podcast, proudly sponsored by Sparkhouse, fantastic working offices here in Lincoln.

0:35Charlie Lawson:So today we have a very special guest with us all. So we are talking to Charlie Lawson, who is from The Unnatural Networker, and we're going to be talking about networking for your personal brand so how to build like genuine relationships online and offline as well so really juicy topic for you all I'm going to pass over to Charlie who's going to explain what is a unnatural networker well hello Kaz hello Toby good to be on thank you for having me what is an unnatural networker well you're looking at one when well I look at what see one in the mirror you're looking at one here now maybe I'll go back in time a little bit and just give you a brief story of how this unnatural network thing came about maybe that's the easiest way to do it so i used to run an organization called bni some people listen to this may well have heard of bni um it's a national organization it's a global organization i ran it in the uk and there were two of us that ran the business in the uk um there was myself and my business partner tim and i joke about it tim literally did all the work and i mean that in terms of he did all the work in the business he did the contracts the spreadsheets the opera he was the operations guy i was the kind of you know front of house if you like uh i don't know if i pretty do the short scroll now but yeah i was we we needed someone we had a an organization a membership organization 15 000 small member businesses and because the founder of bni was based in the states and come over to the uk once every i mean five years or so we needed someone on the ground who was who was present and you know able to connect with our members so i would spend my time speaking training you know on socials on video and getting out and about amongst the bni community and indeed uh promoting bni to the wider business community i know i haven't answered the question yet i'm coming to it but my my thing was my my role was to be to be speaking publicly that's what i what i did so you know you're looking for opportunities to speak whenever you can get them and lots of people kept saying to me well you got to write a book charlie you write a book i was like really you know do i have to you know but you know when enough good people and people you respect kind of say the same thing you think okay i'm gonna have to listen to this now so i started writing this book and admittedly i was i didn't lock myself in a room for three weeks and try and do it in one go i was kind of fitting around the day job but let's be honest i spent a lot of time staring at a screen not writing it literally going nowhere it was it It was really terrible.

3:01And, you know, I might write a bit. I write a couple hundred words. It was basically a networking 101 guide, given that that's what we were trying to promote and what I was trying to do. And, yeah, I write a couple hundred words, and I read it back and go, God, this is so boring. No one is ever going to want to read this. Delete. So that was how the book was going. It was going nowhere fast. Anyway, chatting with Tim in the office one day, and we were just discussing these challenges. And he just said, well, it came around, that I might run a networking organization, but I don't really like networking, whisper it, because I don't necessarily find it that easy.

3:38I'm a little bit of an introvert, a little bit shy. You know, it's not to say I can't do it. And let's face it, networking is just chatting to people. We're doing it right now. But I still don't find it that easy. And it was on that day that the title, The Unnatural Networker, was born and shameless plug alert. There you go. There's my book that was written 10 years ago now, The Unnatural Network was written. I've done a follow-up since. Long, well, bringing it up to the present, I've since sold the BNI business. And now I train lawyers how to network effectively, how to do business development, how to work better with clients, be that work better with their own teams as well.

4:18So yeah, anything around networking, especially where people don't really like to do it, that's what I like to help with. that's awesome i love that because it's networking is one of those things that i think immediately can put butterflies in your stomach for some people and you know some people love it and i i've i'd say because my business pivoted so i used to i used to be an actor and we were talking about this on a recent episode of the podcast actually in the networking for an actor is trying to get down to like press nights and schmooze and you know if you know that someone's in a bar you're going to go over to them and try and make conversation and small talk and put yourself on their radar but actually since working with businesses and as a photographer you know I've grown to absolutely love networking and that for me it's kind of like just building relationships and just trying to meet new people and and not necessarily like push or sell which is what some people I think fear that they have to do when they have to do say a 60 second pitch of their business um so i think that's really interesting how you've actually come into this from an angle that it wasn't necessarily comfortable for you in the first place um can i pick up on a point there because like that as an actor you know as an actor you had to go down go to bars go and schmooze go and talk to people go and get some small talk going and oh my word that sounds like my worst nightmare i mean literally my worst nightmare i i can't think of anything worse than that i I imagine there's plenty of other people that would say the same.

5:51And, yeah, you then went on to say, look, networking is just about being able to relationships. And I think it actually is. And I think that, for me, is such a key point about it. I think the biggest challenge with networking is the word networking. Similar to that. Because what do people do when they say, right, you've got to go and network? Right. Okay. Networking hat on. You know, let's make sure I'm dressed smart and all good. And then, right, got to go and sell. Got to go and bring clients. It's got to go and, you know, get opportunity. Whatever it might be. And actually, that's probably the last thing we want to actually be trying to do.

6:23And the last thing that people who want to see us want us to be doing as well. Much better. Let's just have a chat with people and see how it goes and see, you know, how you can help people. What comes of it will come of it.

6:34Charlie Lawson:And I love that we're talking about this as a kind of networking thing in person as well, because it's the same online, isn't it? everybody jumps on like a professional platform like linkedin and again instantly thinks they need to sell sell sell sell sell but it's hard isn't it you need to start those conversations we need to build relationships we need to connect with other humans but exactly exactly how many times do you connect with someone on linkedin and immediately you know you you accept the connection request i'll drop usually drop a quick message saying hi kaz how are you like thanks for interconnecting house things whatever just something very general immediate i'm not saying you'd do this obviously um but you know 10 % off from widgets or like product today or whatever it might be and it's just it's just too quick kaz and i kind of came across you charlie didn't we at an event that you were speaking at um up here in lincolnshire and um i think what was great is the lobby advice you gave was based on storytelling and you're clearly a fantastic storyteller just give us a little bit of detail about like why does that help us build relationships and what is it about that?

7:42Yeah well I think storytelling is fundamental to making relationships work and in particular I'm coming from one particular angle I should be clear because I give advice on how to network and how to build relationships often that's with the intention of maybe some referrals and business development that's always the angle I'm coming from and I would argue that stories are always going to be more effective because what we're going to do is we've got to educate our network you've built you've got a bunch of people that are all around you in your network whether online or in person doesn't really matter and you're getting to know them well and once you've got to know them then you want to use your network and the best way you can use your network is to empower them with some stories because the stories one they'll enjoy hearing them more that's for starters two they'll be able to recall them because they kind of get you know once you remember them you kind of you know you find yourself kind of sitting in the same shoes almost and you can you can empathize if you like and then they will then retell the stories and that's the crucial bit when it comes to um trying to get referrals because inevitably when you're trying to get a referral let's say i'm trying to refer i'm going to use a simple example i'm trying to refer um an accountant for example the accountant might be the best accountant i possibly know i'm delighted with them i've used and for 20 years myself they're amazing and i can talk until i'm blue in the face about that but in the end if i'm trying to refer that person to a third party someone else that person might go well i've already got an account yes to be fair so how am i gonna how am i gonna prove if you like that it is worth a conversation i'm not saying that everyone is going to drop their account and immediately come and come and be referred to this new accountant but the story really makes a difference and i think it applies in a in-person context it applies in an online context i was doing a workshop only last week with a group of surveyors um i i i got branched out from legal and i went to the world of surveying and they were talking about storytelling and one of them asked well okay i get that we can we can see how we can tell these stories you know when we're out networking and how how we can we can have we help our clients but could i do that in a linkedin post i was like yes you absolutely should do that in a linkedin post okay it might not be quite as in depth because if you're writing out the full story it might be pages long obviously but you can still get across the narrative client was a bit worried or prospect at this stage i should say is a bit worried they something was going wrong for them in in that particular case it was it was building challenges and they needed they needed clarification on on surveying issues i'm not going to try and try and replicate the entire story um but yeah clients got an issue you come in as the surveyor and saved the day and now the client is able to do x y z afterwards that model it really really works to help people um understand what you do and it's also from the unnatural networker's point of view and i'm going to promote my second but i'm an unnatural promoter as well i was i wrote a book called the unnatural promoter i don't write shouting about myself so in the end i'm not shouting about myself i'm just shouting about how the client felt about how i how I did so rambling answer I hope you can you can do something with that because I've kind of gone off here there and everywhere did I actually answer the question yeah that's great that's

10:59Charlie Lawson:brilliant and it's that getting people to resonate with you isn't it and that's why the stories are so powerful because we can resonate with other people's experiences feelings emotions but we can't resonate with buy my thing do my stuff you know that there's a disconnect there and it just puts people off instantly diving in deeper whereas if I'm I'm a nosy human and I'm going in and I'm hearing a story from you I'll hear all the information that you want me to hear but it's in a way where I'm intrigued and I resonate and I connect more so it's that side of it isn't it you said a key word there I think it's it's the emotion that really counts so again another time I was doing again similar content on stories and it was a group of small business owners and there was one lady at the front when I was talking about emotion and she really you could see she was worried about this this point what do you mean emotion oh god I can't do emotion how does that work and I you know you pick up on it because at the front of the room I said well tell us about it and she said look I get how stories could be and can be emotional I think we'd heard one that day where literally someone's life had been saved by this business it was a sort of health practitioner business um and she goes so i get that but what is emotional about payroll i run a payroll company how how can how can i possibly make this emotional and everyone sort of laughed and kind of looked at me how i could deal with this one i said well tell us about a recent client turned out this was in february time of year she had a small business client seven staff um and something had gone wrong at the bank it wasn't the the client's fault wasn't the uh the payroll company's fault the bank had messed up something such that the december payroll didn't go through on something like the 23rd of december it's not that hard to find the emotion when you dig a little for it and what he actually did to resolve that situation to make life easier for those clients she i think forwarded them forwarded them a bit and then reclaimed it from the bank later suddenly made her really referable because she'd gone the extra month so yeah emotion really important when it comes to stories and effectively saved christmas with that one the movies at that time of year all about saving christmas she just said christmas yeah exactly so yeah fine fine storytelling a really important but b find the human element in it and so often that's actually not about what we're doing usually the story is is you know we're promoting ourselves, we're promoting our businesses, we're trying to create our personal brand.

13:32But it's not us that we're telling the story about, it's how our clients feel, both before we came along, i.e. they had some problems within the superhero, swoop in and save the day, and then how do they feel after? And that's the crucial bit for referring. Yeah, interesting. Can I kind of pick up on when you mentioned about networking and telling stories in the aim of getting referrals? Is that your kind of tactic or perspective for networking for you for your business and your sort of requirements or is that how you would recommend the mindset for most people going into a networking environment that you're you're going to kind of get referrals therefore you are going to give the sort of best side of yourself aren't you in a way and share the thing i wouldn't say it's the it's the thing i'd recommend for most people i'd say it's the thing i recommend for absolutely everyone to do because you know let's face it when you're going networking and yet we talked about it before we put our networking hat on we're focused we're gonna we're gonna you know get some business okay we might not be direct selling and actually saying like 50 quid off yeah today buy now you know we're not doing the worst of that but what we're still doing is saying well this someone asked what do you do um i'm going to use simple example again i'm an accountant well what can we We can do tax returns.

14:50We can do VAT returns. We can do your payroll. We can do your management accounts. You know, effectively, you're listing out your products and services. Or that account is listing out your products and services. And let's be honest, who goes to a networking event with the thought of, well, I really need to think about my management accounts now. It just doesn't happen, does it? So absolutely, always, I would encourage any business owner, anyone looking to, well, anyone going network, I think, be quite honest. you might not be a business owner you might just be responsible for business development and i would always be focusing on stories about how you help clients it's so much more powerful and let's face it it's so much more interesting than listing out your products and services

15:33Charlie Lawson:and i always talk about it like the ripple effect of things so whether you're in that room networking or you're online and you put that initial content out about whatever it's it's not even about those two things in those moments it's the ripples from them that can come the opportunities the random nature of networking that that's yes because if you think you know think of your best if you listen to this now think of your best client picture your best client where did you meet them now you may have met them at a networking event that could have happened but the chances are you referred to them by someone else and you met that person through someone else and you met that person through someone else and you met that fifth person down the line or however many far down you met them at a networking event sure but and yeah let's face it if you hadn't gone to that event you wouldn't have met that person and you might not have met any of the other people since but it's just the random nature of it i think i think it's so powerful and the you know the connections that come and you just don't expect them i do love that about yeah definitely yeah because you never know and i love also the this plays into that consistency piece doesn't it again you can't just go to one networking event and expect to get sales and all the benefits from it or anything like that you can't put one post out on social media and connect with five people and expect everything to come from it it's the consistency of showing up isn't it and building those relationships and those connections and then the ripples will come later down the line 100 if you think it's about the quick fix and you know i'm going to go to this event i'm going to post online and suddenly I'm you know everything's going to be fine no it's not a cure for an alien business it's it's a it's a strategy I don't know I'm going to say lots of people don't do it fully as a strategy let's be clear but done well it's a strategy that brings in a stream of business over time but yeah it needs a consistent approach you know working on the right networks to be involved in both online and in person focusing on the right conversations to have talking about the right come back to stories and then getting on to targets as well how are you being targeted with what you're after um because let's face it you've got a network you've built relationships with them over time well you've got to use them they've got to you know they want to help you honestly and genuinely they do want to help you because of the law of reciprocity it might come back to them at some point in the future they want to help you so how can they introduce you to people if you don't give them the tools that they need to introduce you as in who do you need to speak to how do we introduce them how do we plan the approach so we get it right because you know like we had before that example they might just say well i've already got an account thank you end of conversation and then suddenly referral opportunity gone so yeah all of these things it's quite nuanced in how you how you uh how you make it happen but you've got to get that uh get that uh get your networking working for you for sure so my my experience of networking certainly in Lincolnshire is that there's a lot of personal brands, self-employed people, and small businesses don't tend to see much of the sort of medium to larger businesses, whether it's because networking in that sort of capacity is not necessarily relevant for them.

18:46But if you're somebody who's in the early days of starting a personal brand or your own business, like what would be your tips to getting into networking or starting to build that strategy that you kind of mentioned there? okay well there's so many so many areas we can go there uh if we're talking about an unnatural networker sometimes it's literally take a deep breath and yeah let's get out there and just go go go and try it honestly yeah you know and there's definitely a strategy we can explore down there if that would be of use um i think you mentioned at the end there the key is to have a strategy and you know so what do you what do you want to achieve what are you trying to get from this probably business development for most people i would suspect um so who do you want referrals from uh who where are those people like to be or those companies likely to be or who is likely to be able to give you access to those types of companies um so sometimes it's a link down the line or you can get introduced that would get referred to an introducer rather than end user so there's lots of lots of lots of areas we we go there uh having a strategy i think is key but But, yeah, if we're talking unnatural networkers, then I'll say get in the room in the first place and give it a go.

19:53I don't know. Where do you think we should go with this? What do you think, Kaz? I don't think we're in our audience sort of sick because we do have a mix, but.

20:02Charlie Lawson:Yeah, well, no, I just think that's, I just think encouragement for people to get out there and start doing it is what I think most people will probably get from this episode, to just get the bravery and just get out there and start doing it. and maybe again looking at the it's not just for sales and straight away but you know it's the long-term gains of connections in your life because if your network we've got to bear in mind that people are going to do it for a reason so you know then small business owner in Lincoln let's let's just you know I'm sure there'll be people listening who are find themselves in this position maybe just started maybe just thinking why I should apply some networking in the end of the day yes i'm you do need to generate some business if the phone doesn't ring you well you're not gonna have a business let's let's be clear about it so we do we have to have that in mind but if it's just you know a bit of confidence a bit of just get yourself out there just just try it here's the challenge i often find and now now we're in my my wheelhouse because i i really struggle with going to networking events and it might seem weird and you might say i don't believe it you're a networking expert you teach people how to do this stuff but the fact remains i still feel a bit awkward I still feel unnatural to use my uh my uh my uh my phrase um about going to a network event I always think when you go to an event and you kind of get in the door let's say you open up there's a there's a sort of reception area or a you know a desk where they sign you in and then there's everyone networking over there wherever wherever it is and because they're networking they're talking and there's quite a bit of noise because it's people talking it's you know 50 100 people how many people it is there they're all making a noise and I always always always think why does everyone else know what they're doing and i'm the only person who doesn't but i always think and i know rationally that in five minutes time i'm going to be in that group i'm not going to be chatting away and i'll be fine and other people coming in the door will think exactly the same so look if i could just give myself a kicking from above and just say look it's going to be fine just get on with it it's okay um so yeah here i'll give perhaps you know one we're not doing a training session on this now but i'll give one tip all right you might think and i'll use my phone here for a second you might think the smartphone was designed to get online to take photos to um you know do your emails to get on facebook or maybe make a call from time to time you never know um it's actually it's designed to help us unnatural networkers from looking like a lemon at a network event because here's what i do when i get to a network maybe you've had a conversation um i will be in that conversation and i'll be thinking okay i can see this is wrapping up now i'm going to talk to someone else soon i don't know who i'm going to talk to and i'm like that and so i might actually stay a bit longer in the conversation that's that's another point we should perhaps come back to that um but i'm then thinking who am i going to talk to and my natural impulse reaction as soon as that conversation ends if i can't see someone to jump straight into a conversation with now out comes the fact i'm just just checking my emails i promise you i am not checking my emails i just don't want to make it look like i'm talking nobody so here's what i suggest if you're lacking a bit of confidence when it comes to this is when you go to go to that big room you will see people with their phones up go and talk to them two things here one you don't have to interrupt a conversation because even when people are quite open to it and they're showing open body language and you know they're they're happy to meet more people you've still got a slight laugh and catch their eye and you know do you mind if i join you all that kind of stuff so you don't have to do that you can just jump straight in and the second good reason about it is, let's face it, they want someone to come and talk to them and you'll start a relationship off on the ground because you've gone and talked to them.

23:42They're, oh, phew, someone's talking to me. It's just quite nice for them. So, yeah, that would be my confidence tip for you or for people listening to this. For you unnatural networkers, you natural networkers out there are going to be going, just shut up. Shut up. Just shut up and get on and talk to someone. But, yeah, I love that because I've definitely been the one guilty of having my phone out and being stood in the corner within two minutes of entering the room but also if I am you know if I if I take my camera around with me as well because that's a great way to tell everyone instantly I'm a professional photographer is to have my camera on me I can just kind of go into oh I'm just going to look through these photos I've taken so you're so lucky you could get the camera out and be shooting people and I can do that yeah yeah you know in a nice way you know what I mean and you could be you could be taking pictures of people oh i think every unnatural networker should get a camera probably it is good you can kind of earwig into conversations and interject you know and leave again when you when you wish to so it does work quite well in that sense yeah um but no i've definitely been guilty of uh being the one stood in the corner with a phone and i'd argue that even

24:54Charlie Lawson:the most confident people that you see in there that are natural networkers are probably not internally and they might just have been to more meetings and again got used to showing an outer confidence when inside they're still really not yeah no there are some natural networkers i can think of well one in my life but my other half hannah she is the most natural networker she will talk to anyone anywhere anytime just literally anywhere and and i mean to the extent that my daughter on the school run would kind of if they're holding hands she'd kind of pull her in just like you know stop talking to people just stop talking to people the whole time um so there are natural networkers out there for definite um but yeah you're right there's plenty of unnatural networkers and i promise you by the way they are not checking their emails they are absolutely not they want you to go and talk to them so go and give it a go next next event you go to love that love that so i guess would the same be online as well because again there's a lot of people that will comment on your post will interact will engage with you and you can get caught up with commenting and engaging on those and building relationships but maybe look for some of more of your ideal audience as well that potentially wouldn't reach out to you first but that you might be able to go into conversation i think online it's a slightly lands in a slightly different way uh this is where i come back i mentioned the point about being an unnatural promoter i don't really like self-promotion shouting about myself i find that harder i think there's a lot of people that i've looked into in quite a bit is it because i'm british no i don't think it is because there's plenty of British people who are very happy to do it um and there's also plenty of people I know who aren't from this country who who definitely struggle with it as well so it's not that just reserved thing um I find it I posted on LinkedIn about it recently actually I I really struggle even forget going on to LinkedIn we'll come back to that I say I struggle just with a WhatsApp group you know a WhatsApp group full of mates you know these are not people I'm trying to impress in any way these are people I've known for years and years I still don't find it easy to post in in a group because i just think god what's everyone gonna think are they gonna judge me are they gonna argue back i don't know it's probably silly irrational stuff honestly but i still don't find that easy so when it comes to posting something on linkedin that is there now as a this is what charlie says and you know this yeah i don't find that easy and i'm definitely on a journey with linkedin i think it's again like you said before it's practice and you'll get even more used to it and that's fine but if you're not confident with it i think um commenting you mentioned there i think it's such a great way to to start you get quite a lot of reach and engagement just from commenting on people and let's face it the people who's posts your commenting on if you're being targeted about that same way we were talking about before about who you need to be networking with but if you're you know commenting on people who are going to be useful for you and and could be good referral partners for you well they're going to like it they're going to engage you start conversations that way so commenting can be a great way for the unnatural promoter to to get going and hopefully over time you can build the confidence to post you don't need to do it every day just just consistency i think we said that word before but um doing doing it regularly is the key it doesn't look great if your last post was in i don't know february 2022 and you know you haven't posted since then that doesn't look like a business that's alive and well does it yeah consistency is really important yeah definitely i think there was something you said earlier as well about the law of reciprocity that kind of jigged my thought process as well.

28:23Charlie Lawson:And it was about, I kind of thought, well, do you know what? If you're going onto these platforms or you're going into these in-person events as well, maybe thinking about yourself, yes, we need business, yes, we need stuff to come to us, absolutely. But also if you're a bit uncomfortable with it, does it help going in there with the mindset more of, I wonder who I could help? I wonder who I could connect to whoever? because again that would come back round to you but would that help maybe with people who are a bit more nervous i think it it's it's a great tip to to try because i think yes one it's a good thing to do generally as long as you're you're genuinely meaning it and you you know you say so how can i help you and then you follow you've got to follow through on it clearly if you're just doing it then then i'm not doing anything about it that's going to be a problem but yeah no absolutely it's a great way to network because it's it's look it's it's relationship building how can you help it the best way to get referrals is to give referrals because what happened i mean it's a bit like when you go for dinner at a friend's house what do you tend to do when you walk away and you go oh god i must invite must invite you over next time you want to reciprocate um and referrals are just just exactly exactly the same um so yeah no it's it's definitely a good good good thing to do um is it an easier way to do it for the unnatural i haven't really thought about that maybe it is maybe it's you know you're taking the pressure off yourself um i i should maybe look into that i might might uh might might think about some some more i think that's a good good doubt you should i should i should do a post on it and then consider it more definitely there's the third book yeah

30:02yeah no yeah the question of whether just that helps yeah chances are it probably would because you're taking the pressure off yourself and i think that's that's the main thing i think a lot of unnatural networkers and promoters feel they feel they can't make it about themselves they you know it feels awkward it feels icky feels so yeah if you're trying to help other people it's

30:21Charlie Lawson:great shout definitely yeah so could you tell us a little bit more about because i think it's been quite insightful that you mentioned the word strategy with networking quite a bit in this episode and i tend to turn up to networking events just to kind of either catch up with people i already know or hopefully meet some new people there's no real strategy to it and i'm i've realized i'm clearly missing a trick so tell us a little bit more about like trying to trying to target certain people or how do we go about implementing that yeah definitely i mean you use a couple of interesting words there you use the word hopefully uh hopefully you know hope is a great strategy um you know we all love referrals let's face it when they land on a lot they're brilliant but yeah not much of a strategy so yeah i definitely really recommend one key thing is being really targeted and actually being really specific of the person i don't necessarily mean just the company the person that you want to speak to and why the person will quite often the connections that people are going to come up with this from might be the personal connections quick story was doing an exercise with a with a group of small businesses we're going around the room everyone was just asking for a specific person and as we were going around there was this guy at the back of the room who was definitely not buying into what we would i was saying you could tell from his body language uh and there'd been some good connections made came to him and he said no no no move on and i was like now come on just give it a go try it you've seen some good connections made here try it and he says look if you're telling me this group of small business owners like we've got here in the room are going to be able to introduce me to the marketing manager the hilton hotel group i don't believe it everyone looked to me going what's he going to say now the guy next door to him and i mean literally sat next to him uh said so there's a good friend of mine our kids go to the same school we played golf together we actually live in the same road they weren't next to our neighbors but a couple of houses down um he's the chairman of the hilton hotel group but i don't think i'm going to refer you because i don't really like your attitude that's no way well shut him up firstly um and prove my point which was excellent the key is it sounds counterintuitive to say i want to speak to i'm going to use that example again the marketing manager the hilton hotel group because you think well what's the chances you know honestly what chances and let's be let's be frank it's not going to happen very often and you might think the counterintuitive bits i'm going to rule out all of those people over there just to go for this one over here but yes one we've got to train our members our network how to refer you um and you If you've got the relationship, then they want to help you.

32:50So they will try and do it. If maybe they don't know that person, it may be they know someone a bit like them. They might know someone else at that company. They might know someone else at a company that's similar to them. All sorts of things can come up. And it may just be they know that person and they can make that referral really easily. So my strong suggestion, think targeted, think strategic. Who do you need to speak to? It's really powerful when you do that.

33:14Charlie Lawson:And they might not be in the room, but online world, we're even more connected exactly when you when you get onto LinkedIn yeah I used to work with a networking group um full disclosure it was a BNI group because I was involved in BNI I used to work with one one particular group and I encouraged them to do this and they all wrote them down they had a little sheet that they all filled it out and afterwards at the end of the meeting they'd circulate it and they'd uh you know people would do with it what they did I always just put it to my the people in my office I didn't go on to LinkedIn even I would just put it to the people in my office and said, can anyone help?

33:48You know, random request. Every single week I did that, or every single time I did that, I would get someone who would have some sort of a connection somewhere, be it I had a friend that used to work there, or I think I know someone, or I know someone a bit like that. Every week it happened. So when you go onto LinkedIn and really work it and start looking through secondary connections, I'm not even going to think about third degree connections, amazing possibilities. Amazing possibilities. That's great. That's really, really cool. So I think that kind of leans us nicely to the action step part of the episode.

34:20So what we do, Charlie, is we like to give some sort of task or activity that listeners can take away. So each week, hopefully, if they're following along with episodes, they're building their personal brand and they've got one thing to think about for that week to sort of implement. So with regards to networking, what would you sort of set as the actionable step for our listeners? Well, I'm going to go straight back to that point I just made. let's be really targeted and let's be focused on it and let's build our specific referral target list so i would encourage anyone to have i'm going to say it's a rolling list honestly because it's going to change over time you know hopefully you're introduced to these people sometimes you might find well they're not interested in your service that's fine um but you have a rolling list let's say top 10 um that you continue to have and you just maintain and you share with people on a regular basis uh now maybe getting to 10 straight away you can build that let's get There's three on the list right now.

35:10So everyone, get out there, get three targets on your list, and then start asking your network for them. I love that. I'm definitely going to do that. I need to do that.

35:20Charlie Lawson:Me too. That's really helpful. Thanks, Charlie. So, Charlie, where can people find out more information about you should they wish to? Obviously, we're going to share stuff in the show notes, but is there anything that you can pass on where they can find you or anything helpful that they can use to help their own networking? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, best place to find me is probably LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me there. Charlie Lawson, you'll see it. You can work that bit up. The other thing I'd just point you to is I have a little quiz. Let's face it, who doesn't love a quiz? You know, you can get a score.

35:56You can see how you're doing. But the quiz is all about how ready your network is to refer you. so based on what you're doing your activities and how you're you're engaging with your network are they likely to give you referrals quite a useful score i think for people to to know because if they're not doing and you know they're not ready to refer you well we need to work on it and help out so i've got a little quiz we'll i guess you put the link in the in in the show notes but feel free to take it free takes three or four minutes you get a personalized report and yeah, love to help you if that can in some way.

36:31Fantastic.

36:32Charlie Lawson:Great. Well, thanks so much, Charlie, for joining us for this episode. It's been great to have you on. Pleasure. Thank you for having me. So that's all we've got time for in today's episode of the Brand New Podcast. It would really, really help us out if you can like and subscribe on whichever platform you're listening or following us on and keep an eye out for future episodes dropping weekly. Thank you again to our sponsors, Sparkhouse Lincoln and thank you again for Charlie for joining us. Here's to branding you.